Shaw Shakes Off the Jetlag

It has taken Simon Shaw eight years but, finally, he has made a World Cup. In 1995 he was ruled out of participating by a knee injury and last time around hampered by a bad back. When Clive Woodward phoned in early September to inform him he had missed out a third time, the normally affable Wasps lock admits he swore down the line at least twice.

The broken hand suffered by Danny Grewcock, however, has finally rescued Shaw from life-time membership of the bitter and twisted club. His luck has changed to the extent he could even feature on the bench against Wales and, despite blinking through jetlag after a "recovery" session which "almost killed me", there was no happier man in Queensland yesterday.

When he received Woodward's message last Sunday it was, he confessed, "the one time I've rushed to call him" following a depressing number of "hard luck" calls from the coach in the past. The towering 6ft 9in forward could hardly bear to watch more than a few minutes of England's first couple of World Cup games and says the hurt of his original rejection was initially too much to bear.

"It was hard," he confessed. "I always had an inkling Clive might take three second-rows and use Martin Corry as a utility player but I felt I'd done enough in the warm-up games to warrant a place. It was a huge blow when I got the news." He was in the process of moving house when Woodward rang him. "I kept the conversation brief. He explained himself and I didn't really need any more information. If the guy in charge thinks someone's better than you there's not much you can do about it."

Woodward's latest call, though, has changed everything for the 30-year-old Shaw and his partner Jane, who recently gave birth to their baby daughter Samantha. "I was in a bit of a state of shock, to be honest. My partner was all teary so I spent most of my day trying to console her." He has also received a wry text message from Martyn Wood, the Bath scrum-half flown out to Australia as emergency cover only to be sent home within three days. "I got a text from Martyn which said 'Enjoy your World Cup, it's not all it's cracked up to be.'"

For Shaw, in contrast, the next three weeks could yet be momentous ones. With Corry suffering from a hamstring tweak, England are short of alternative second-row cover and he could gain a 24th cap as a replacement against the Welsh.

Woodward is due to unveil his team this morning, his deliberations slightly complicated by the absence of five players from training yesterday. In addition to Corry and Richard Hill, whose hamstring remains problematic, Iain Balshaw, Ben Cohen and Paul Grayson also sat out the session.

As Will Greenwood made clear, there is little chance of the players taking Wales lightly. "In any team captained by Martin Johnson, the word complacency doesn't enter the vocabulary," insisted the centre.